What Happened To Joseph Stalin Essay

Stalin used propaganda to rise to power and build a totalitarian state in the 1920's and 30's. The use of propaganda helped Stalin gain followers and make him look better to the public so they would want to follow him and help him rise to power. Propaganda helped with building of a totalitarian state by helping convince the public of whatever Stalin wanted them to

Joseph Stalin, from the time that he was a low level revolutionary to the years that he spent as the dictator of the Soviet Union, always knew what he needed to do to achieve his goals. His organized rise to power allowed him to gain a steady flow of followers who would support him for decades to come. Stalin received a minor government position in 1917, but by the time a new leader was needed in 1924, he “had turned the largely routine post of Party general secretary into the most powerful office in the Soviet Union” (“Joseph Stalin) and “had built a personal empire for himself through his control over committee appointments at all levels . . . expand[ing] the leading Party organs with his supporters, who then voted against his rivals”

Throughout historical times, the rule of Josef Stalin has been questioned due to his position as being one of the most popular and contentious leaders. Through the evaluation of his ruling within the Soviet Union, he can be seen as both a positive and negative ruler. His methods of changing the country following World War I were sudden, causing a complete change in societal ways of life in controversial ways. While his changes created one of the most powerful countries the world had ever seen at its’ time, they also caused for massive discontent within the citizens of Soviet Russia.

Stalin used the media in order to convince the Russian citizens that there were saboteurs and spies within Russian population. Stalin used the secret police and military forces to carry out the arrests of so called

The assumption of power by Joseph Stalin was arguably one of the most significant periods of Bolshevik Russia’s history. Stalin is recognised as one of the most influential men to have ever lead Russia, and he did so through the largest war the world has ever faced, World War II, and through the beginning of one of the most tense periods of modern history, the Cold War. It is easy however, to get lost in the legacy Stalin left behind, and forget about the events leading up to his total control over the communist regime of the 20th century Russia.

The Party members in 1984 are under constant surveillance, and are required to act in a certain matter whilst having virtually no human interaction. They had one, job and one job only which was to serve the party. They could not do anything out of the ordinary without suspicion, and could be charged and sentenced for anything since it did not matter because when Party no longer needed them, they disappeared like the steam from a hot mug of coffee. Under Stalin's rule, all men, women, and children were documented by the secret police. They were watched, and if anyone tried to rebel they would be sent to a gulag, otherwise known as a labor camp, and to be tortured, starved, and even killed. Evidently it was kept a secret to the public, since ignorance was oppression itself.

Stalin lived by Vladimir Lenin’s teachings and he thought that communism was what the world desired. He sought to make the USSR atheist and was eager to protect the USSR no matter what. To protect his people, he focused on Military which was one of Stalin’s strongest components. Joseph Stalin once said, “Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?”

Stalin was noticed first by Vladimir Lenin who was currently getting exiled at the time. When Lenin found the Soviet Union he was the leader. Lenin worked well with Stalin and during those first few years of the Soviet Union and Stalin continued to move up in the political ranking system of the Soviet Union. When Stalin hit the rank of General of the central committee his ideas could finally be heard and giving knowledge for political support. When Lenin died Stalin beat Lenin’s rivals to the control of the Communist party, and later became the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist

Joseph Stalin was communist dictator party leader who use deception to gain his power and violence to rise as dictator. He came to power in Soviet Union, after the previous leader Lenin have died. Russia had to face the circumstance of a need for a new successor in Lenin place, in which obviously there would be multiple people competing for Lenin successor. Stalin was very smart during his time, he was able to outmaneuver his rivals to rise to the top. Stalin assassinated his rival Trotsky and those who oppose him in his conquest for power. He was also able accomplish in photoshopping in his time, manipulating a photo of Lenin to recreation a new

The Cult of Stalin was an ingenious method devised by the man himself to convince the populace of his adequacy, leading on from the previous Cult of Lenin. The inflation of his image was built upon a foundation of insecurity: he’d found that Lenin himself had expressed that he was ‘not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution’ (from PowerPoint). This explains a lot of the exaggeration of his power, and the gradual shift from posing behind Lenin as his successor to standing before him in an act of supremacy. Stalin needed to prove to the public that he was worthy of succession.

This resulted in a Cult of Personality within Russia based out Stalin himself. By this there was Censorship of anything that might reflect badly on him, there was Propaganda everywhere - pictures, statues, continuous praise and applause. There were Places named after him and other much loved figures e.g Stalingrad and Leningrad, and also mothers taught their children that Stalin was ‘the wisest man of the age’. History books and photographs were changed to make him the hero of the Revolution, and destroy the names of purged people (e.g. Trotsky). Stalin’s acquisition of total power had a huge impact as the countless victims of de-kulakisation, the terror, the gulags and the Show Trials could testify.

must be obeyed (p.280). Collectivist societies include a built-in hierarchy, each position within the society is preordained with little to no wiggle room. In the case of Stalin, he ensured there would be no question of his authority by surrounding himself by subordinates who served him (did as they were told and served a purpose within his regime) and those subjects who may have questioned him feared him for those who offered the slightest bit of opposition were executed or exiled. However, there were those who loved him. Strong and Killingsworth (2011) quoted Kornei Chukovski (1936) as writing in his diary the following excerpt:

Under an unstable and insecure reign of Joseph Sstalin, million were sent through a system of prison camps, similar to those in Nazi, Germany. Through a series of purges, Stalin managed to send millions of Russian citizens into forced labor camps for some crimes as small as crimes as petty as lateness to work, releasing waves of fear and hostility through Russian society and culture. At its peak, there were 476 total camps, through which as much as 15 percent of the population passed. The system of prison camps was first introduced by Joseph Stalin, successor of Vladimir Lenin, as he attempted to rid his cabinet of anyone who he considered to be a threat to himself; many of the beginning political prisoners had higher educations, of which Stalin himself lacked. Though the old leaders of the party

The soviet communist party, or the Bolsheviks, always new that strong propaganda was essential to increase the consciousness of the masses. As stated in the Encyclopedia of Propaganda, " propaganda was central to Marxist-Leninist ideology long before the Bolshevik revolution of 1917."(675) The power of persuasion and coercion were exercised with great force by Soviet leaders. The two leaders whom utilized propaganda to influence public opinion in the USSR were Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Both men used many different facets of the media to spread their propaganda. They also used the troubled social climate along with the ignorance of the masses to custom tailor a regime that lasted for over seven decades.

Joseph Stalin’s three decade long dictatorship rule that ended in 1953, left a lasting, yet damaging imprint on the Soviet Union in political, economic and social terms. “Under his inspiration Russia has modernised her society and educated her masses…Stalin found Russia working with a wooden plough and left her equipped with nuclear power” (Jamieson, 1971). Although his policies of collectivisation and industrialisation placed the nation as a leading superpower on the global stage and significantly ahead of its economic position during the Romanov rule, this was not without huge sacrifices. Devastating living and working standards for the proletariat, widespread famine, the Purges, and labour camps had crippling impacts on Russia’s social